Why Ellison wants to take on Google

Why would any company want to go out of its way to compete with Google? That's precisely what Oracle is doing with a new program designed to search corporate networks because, CEO Larry Ellison says, "what Google does not do well is search private data."

But even if that's true, enterprise companies such as Oracle don't have exactly the best track record when competing with aggressive Web players. Companies such as Novell and Lotus, for example, lost an enormous lead in the internal message market to the likes of instant messengers from Yahoo, AOL and MSN.

What Oracle may really be doing is simply looking for new bait to lure customers into database sales. Companies have been trying for years to come up with new ways to sell new databases, which are among the most expensive and complicated software purchases a business can make. Five years ago, Ellison touted his database software as a way to host and manage e-mail, taking on Microsoft's Exchange servers; today's search concept could very well be just another version of the same sales strategy.

Blog community response:

"Although one of the largest and most profitable software companies three to five years ago, due to the incredible success of the Oracle database, Oracle's organic growth has been slow. In addition, Oracle's efforts to develop their own business applications have been disappointing."
--Broad and Wall

"They're all trying to gain back ground from newer vendors in the space such as IXOS and Cryoserver. But like HP's RISS, it'll be big and bold--and few people will buy it for now, preferring the smaller more specialist vendors."
--A Molina, on CNET News.com's Talkback

"Oracle has released its free database. The strategy of Oracle, Microsoft and IBM makes perfect sense. By making your product free, developers and students will get familiar with your product and are more likely to use the full product tomorrow. This should have been done years ago."
--MediaCatalyst